


anywhere (with you)

by lethandralis



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, mentions of medical procedures, small mentions of Trans Stuff, the slowest of burns.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 14:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20047324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethandralis/pseuds/lethandralis
Summary: rhys has always been the leader among them, which vaughn doesn't mind.





	1. looking up

There are things in life that make sense. Mathematics makes sense. Databases usually make sense, provided nobody has fucked with his lately. Numbers have this beautiful way of listening to you when you know how to talk to them.

Attraction doesn’t make sense. _Rhys_ often doesn’t make sense, a fact which plagues Vaughn almost daily. He’s ebullient, outgoing, sociable, ambitious, and yet sometimes he’s _so fucking stupid_ that it makes Vaughn’s head spin.

They’re friends from college, and the story starts there. They met in Business Ethics, a horribly boring class that was somehow also extremely difficult and required for both of them. This was a long time ago, before Rhys had gained his ECHO eye and his cybernetic arm or even his tattoos, but he was still eye-catching, if only because he was so goddamn gangly.

“It’s a curse,” Rhys had groaned, self-pitying, as he unfolded himself from the desk in the lecture hall after class one day.

“At least you can reach things,” shrugged Vaughn, picking up the water bottle that Rhys was almost certainly going to forget.

“When I’m rich, I’m only sitting in custom-made chairs. Just for me. Mark my fucking words, Vaughn.” He’d pointed dramatically with his newly retrieved water bottle at nothing in particular.

Vaughn had chuckled. “Alright, alright. I’ll look into, uh, custom chair manufacturers.”

Rhys had beamed, genuinely _beamed_, and clapped Vaughn on the back, and Vaughn had to fake a cough to hide a startled squeak.

* * *

They’d joined on to Hyperion at the same time, the same batch of fresh blood, and it had been _awful_. Vaughn’s plan, pre-Rhys, had been to work for some small company, or maybe go out on his own. A simple life, an apartment, some houseplants. Stability. He's never been a man of big, grand plans, not like Rhys.

But Hyperion had put on a hiring fair on their campus during their last semester, and Rhys had gone off for _days_ about his plans of corporate domination, and damn if Vaughn hadn’t been strung along like the big, stupid sucker he was.

But it was okay. He found his little corner and he worked hard, head down, trying to avoid the deadly corporate drama that plagued this company. He found a rhythm in the numbers, in going over to Rhys’ apartment after work, in getting drunk and talking shit. It was comfortable. But it was inadequate. Vaughn awoke in his cheap twin-sized bed many days wondering if there wasn't something more to be had.

* * *

Rhys is a lot of things that Vaughn isn’t. Tall, for one. Smooth, sometimes, and often charming in a way he doesn’t seem to realize. (Or maybe he does? Who knows. He seems to be seeing someone new every week or two, although it never really lasts.)

They’d come into themselves together, awkward and college-aged. Tried new names, tried new clothes, found a little niche for themselves and hung on _so fucking tight_. It had been hard. The world was so big and they often felt so small and so different that it seemed like they might just fade into non-existence. There were so many other people around them, but only so few that were like them. But they made it work, together, and in so many ways they grew into themselves, similarly.

But the men they have become are different, and sometimes Vaughn spots the difference and it feels like a miles-deep chasm yawning open between them. Rhys works in programming, a job that isn’t necessarily glamorous or appealing but that sounds sexier than _accounting_. And Rhys has this confident air about him, like if he tries hard enough and smiles at the right people he can do anything.

But Vaughn is… not that. Vaughn is a second-guesser, a rule-follower, the one who read the employee handbook. He doesn’t think he’s destined for greatness – he doesn’t think he’s destined for much of anything, really. Rhys has these grand, lifelong goals and sometimes Vaughn doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep up.

Rhys is in the middle of detailing one of his grand schemes one night when he pauses. “What do you want to do?”

“What, like, for dinner?” asks Vaughn, incredulous. He's been fidgeting with his new watch, trying to swallow down a torrent of inadequacy.

“No, like, more generally. What do you want to do with your life?”

Vaughn pauses. “I, uh, I wanna live in an apartment with more than two windows?”

Rhys chuckles and shakes his head. “But what are you gonna do when we get _loaded_?”

“I, man, I don’t know. I’m an accountant! I don’t have grand dreams. And we make good money, but not '_get loaded_' money.”

Rhys folds his arms, furrows his brows a little. “Well you’re comin’ with me, no matter what, okay?”

Vaughn cocks his head to the side. “I’m not a businessman, Rhys.”

“Then you’ll be my accountant or whatever! I don’t care, Vaughn, but we’re going to live the good life together or not at all.” Rhys looks stubborn, standing his ground like he always does, convinced he's right.

Vaughn’s heart swells painfully, aching like it’s about to crack his ribs. “Alright, man. But I’m not fudging your numbers.”

Rhys laughs uproariously. “No, no, no, you won’t need to! We’ll be rich in a totally above-board way.”

* * *

The ECHO eye is a cybernetic implant intended to help Rhys be more competitive at his job. The faster he can look up information, he figures, the better he can work, and the faster he can scale the corporate ladder. Vaughn knows that it’s not a cosmetic procedure. It’s a practical – and expensive – piece of computing hardware. Rhys spends his entire first bonus on it, and even that barely covers it.

It's an ugly process. Rhys gets out of the clinic with a swollen face, bandages around his forehead and over his eye. He struggles with depth perception, walking into walls and stumbling over air as Vaughn guides him down the hallways and up elevators to his apartment. He looks _exhausted._

Rhys is in pain for a while. It makes sense, really - Vaughn isn't sure how much wiring they've just put into his best friend's brain, but it seems like a lot, and his brain seems angry that it's there. Vaughn keeps Rhys on his couch, keeping him hydrated and making sure he takes his medications and keeps the wound clean.

He hates it.

But, holy shit, the day three weeks after the operation when Rhys can finally remove the eyepatch and he blinks his new, shockingly blue eye into focus – Vaughn feels his stomach turn and his pulse rise.

“How does it feel?” he asks, carefully.

Rhys looks around, testing it. “Weird. Like, it doesn’t _feel_, but it’s still different, you know?”

“Does it work?”

Rhys blinks again, then squints at something off in the distance. “I don’t – _whoa_, holy shit,” says Rhys, robotic pupil going wide before contracting again. “Yep! It works!” His voice is high, tight, nervous and excited. Vaughn can feel the electricity in his spine.

“Sweet.” Vaughn smiles, carefully placid, offering his fist out for Rhys to bump. _I’m so fucked,_ he thinks.

* * *

Vaughn tries very hard not to dwell on how he feels about Rhys. He finds it to be a waste of time. Rhys is _attractive_ in a way that Vaughn thinks he won't ever be. Sometimes he sees the little trail of hair inching down from Rhys' navel as he changes out of his work clothes and swallows down a pang of guilt. Jealousy or need, he isn't sure, but it shouldn't be there. They are friends, and that is that.

Vaughn likes guys, mostly. Rhys likes most everyone, as far as anyone can tell - he's too sociable to be contained by preferences. Vaughn is positive, however, that "most everyone" does not include "scrawny five-foot-two dudes from accounting who iron their curtains".

While Rhys had healed from his operation, Vaughn had plenty of time to consider what made Rhys so frustrating, so _distracting_. 

He'd come up short. Rhys is conventionally attractive, sure - tall, lanky, well-groomed, nice eyes. But lots of people are conventionally attractive, and Vaughn doesn't find himself daydreaming about _them_.

He stuffs that train of thought down. _It doesn't matter_, he thinks. _Rhys doesn't feel the same way, so who cares why? _Rhys regains his ability to care for himself and Vaughn returns to work, leaning into it because it's distracting. But his thoughts meander.

In college Vaughn had struggled with panic attacks. Big, crushing, world-ending things that threatened to eat his entire brain whole. He'd had one after failing a calculus exam, the semester after he'd met Rhys. The first one Rhys saw. Rhys, careful and quiet, had led Vaughn home to his room and kept him safe until he could stop hyperventilating. Vaughn had apologized, mortified, and Rhys had laughed it off.

"It sucks to fail things," he'd said, hand on Vaughn's shoulder. "I'm glad I could help. Don't sweat it, okay?"

It wasn't the last time Rhys would talk him back from the edge. Over time he got to be pretty good at it, learning the mazes that Vaughn's logic would take, memorizing the way out. He'd learned to talk quiet, not move too fast, to help Vaughn undo his collar buttons so he wouldn't feel like he was choking. Vaughn felt gut-punched with shame every time, but Rhys refused to be anything but kind.

Things got better after a while. Vaughn found a medication that helped, and Rhys found ways to help more outside of that. They fell into orbit, keeping each-other in check, each the second half of the other's brain. It had been so easy.

It is years later, now, and they're still orbiting. They eat lunch together most days, when their schedules allow, and they talk constantly. Vaughn tries not to be obvious when he's gawking at Rhys, and he thinks he succeeds because Rhys hasn't told him to fuck off just yet. He's made a promise to himself to not mention it - he really values their friendship, and it would kill him to ruin it over some stupid crush.

(Even if that stupid crush is three or so years old.)

He never really manages to make sense of his attraction. Rhys is charming, and funny, and charismatic, but he's also amazingly stupid, infuriatingly impulsive, and often self-centered. He has a big ego. He spends ages on his hair. His handwriting is atrocious.

Vaughn repeats these to himself on the days when it's really hard, trying to back himself down from the edge of confession. Even his friend's most grievous offenses stand up poorly to the feeling of his hand on the middle of Vaughn's back, talking him down from the cliff with practiced ease. It can't stand up to Rhys, relaxed and laughing over some stupid inside joke, on the couch in Vaughn's apartment. And it certainly can't stand up to Rhys, thrumming with excitement as he shows off his new eye.

(Vaughn's first boyfriend in high school had had blue eyes, _god damn it, Vaughn, you predictable sucker._)

So even though he doesn't necessarily _like_ that his best friend keeps going in for dangerous and somewhat experimental cybernetic enhancements, he's there to help, to patch him up. Because they're friends. They're best friends. And if that's all Vaughn has on this fucking space station, he's going to hang on to it.


	2. looking down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rhys is capable, sure, but he's nothing without his best friend.

They’re different people. Rhys had learned this about two study sessions in, when Vaughn had opened his binder to share meticulously handwritten and organized notes. They think differently, move differently, relate to the world differently. Over the years Rhys has found it calming to have someone different than him to talk to, someone whose perspective is so different from his own.

Vaughn is methodical, step-by-step, organized. Vaughn is a day planner with every hour laid out. Rhys is spaghetti code, barely put together well enough to compile but somehow still running, flying by the seat of his pants in all aspects of his life. He’d slept an entire hour before his second interview with Hyperion, riding on a high of energy drinks and adrenaline, and honest to fucking God he doesn’t remember what happened in that room other than they offered him the job.

Vaughn had interviewed two days later, after carefully reviewing notecards with accounting lingo and business buzzwords. He, too, had been hired. They celebrated with shitty beer and shittier pizza, toasting to a brighter future.

* * *

They’ve been with Hyperion for eight months when Rhys goes in for the ECHO eye. It’s paid for with a bonus he’d received for successfully exiting his probationary period, and it hurts like nothing he’s ever felt before in his life, like lightning shooting through his brain. The doctor tells him it’s nothing to sneeze at, that despite the commonality of cybernetic implants there are complications that can arise in even the best circumstances. Rhys signs the consent forms anyway. The guy at the head of his team has one of these, and it’s sick as _hell_, and Rhys needs it.

The operation is twelve hours long, during which a robot roots around in his brain, connects a bunch of wiring, and removes his (slightly astigmatic) eye. It is a success, says the surgeon on his discharge papers. He spends the next week in Vaughn’s apartment, sleeping off the pain with an ice pack to his head and an eye patch on. The days drag on until Vaughn gets home from work and gathers Rhys’ head up into his lap, soothing and kind. Vaughn talks to him, in low tones, about pretty much nothing – work, spreadsheets, accounting department drama, [the plant](https://twitter.com/ceruleanspruce/status/1163153023872323584) he’s trying and failing to keep alive on his desk. But it’s soothing, somehow, and it manages to distract him from the electric pain tearing through his skull.

On the third night he falls asleep with fingers in his hair and does not dream of pain.

* * *

Of course, the ECHO eye sucks so bad that he goes in for a cybernetic arm four months later. This, too, is paid for with a bonus; Rhys is rising through the ranks at a comfortable clip, and it seems as though everything is coming up in his favor. Vaughn seems skeptical that Rhys is willing to do away with an _entire functional arm_ for the sake of a little bit of a work advantage, but Rhys sticks with his plan. The consent forms for this one are a little less scary; fewer things have to make their way into the sensitive parts of his brain for this one, he guesses. He signs them without really reading them anyway. He's already made up his mind, and a stupid piece of paper isn't going to change his plans now.

This one hurts differently, a full-body ache that leaves him unable to leave his room for four days. Vaughn comes to him, then, uses up sick days to make sure Rhys eats and takes his medications on time. It's tender in a way that makes Rhys' head spin, in a way that he isn't sure how to respond to. He's used to holing up in his room and taking care of himself when he's unwell - it feels strange to be in his twenties and being cared for. 

But he's grateful nonetheless. He tries to thank Vaughn for it, buy him dinner or a case of beer or something, and Vaughn waves him off every time. "We're best friends," he says. "It's what I'm supposed to do."

* * *

The migraines are the worst part. Even a year after the ECHO eye implant, Rhys still can’t seem to shake them, and once one starts it follows him around for days. It’s a side-effect of the implant, one that his doctor has informed him unfortunately cannot be fixed. Something about the wiring irritating blood vessels in his brain. It hurts like a vice-grip, radiating out from his eye all over his body.

He’s on the fourth day of a particularly nasty one when Vaughn lets himself into his apartment, shutting the door behind him as softly as he can. Rhys is sprawled out over his too-small couch, necktie tied over his face to block the light. He can hear Vaughn’s footsteps approaching and swallows down a wave of nausea.

Vaughn taps the back of his human hand three times, softly. _Hi,_ it means. Rhys wiggles his fingers weakly by way of a response.

It’s silent for a few moments – presumably Vaughn is surveying Rhys’ misery nest (did he brush his teeth this morning? Shit.), and then noise. Small, calloused hands flip his over gently. Two pills are placed in one, and a glass of water in the other. Rhys sighs, gathers the energy to sit up, and takes them.

As Rhys focuses on keeping the medication down he can hear Vaughn slipping his shoes off, putting his bag down, and settling in. This is a ritual, now, and as much as it pains Rhys to be so fucking dependent it is nice to have someone to make sure he takes his medication. It’s nice to be reminded that there’s another human being out there in the throes of his lonesome pain.

Vaughn’s hand is on Rhys’ left forearm. _How are you feeling?_

Rhys wobbles his robotic hand back and forth. _Not awesome._

Two pats on his arm. _I’m here if you need me._ Rhys nods and feels Vaughn’s presence leave to go do… whatever the fuck it is that he does while Rhys is like this. Rhys isn’t sure – he doesn’t make noise other than breathing and sometimes shifting positions, doesn’t emit light that Rhys can detect. It must be boring. He wonders if one day Vaughn won't get up and leave because of it.

Something between twenty minutes and three hours passes in relative silence, and Rhys feels like he might be able to sit up, so he does. He must look ridiculous, in an old ratty t-shirt from college and boxer briefs with his fucking tie tied around his head. Rhys draws in a long, shaky breath, tries to stop his head spinning.

“What time is it?” he asks, voice gravelly from disuse.

“Seven forty-three,” says Vaughn, very low.

“…And what day?”

“Friday the twenty-third.”

“Right. Aw—fuck, damnit, I had a deadline today.”

“Already taken care of. Pushed back to Wednesday.”

Rhys isn't sure how Vaughn has managed this, but he's grateful. “You’re the best, bro.”

“Anytime.”

There’s quiet for a few minutes as Rhys feels his gut settle. “Are the lights off?”

“Mhm.”

Rhys pushes the necktie from his eyes and blinks. The low light from the coffee maker in the kitchen is a little painful, but manageably so. He sees Vaughn smiling at him and his heart twists a little.

“Welcome back to the land of the living!” jokes Vaughn, still quiet. He’s sitting in a kitchen chair pulled up by the couch, still in his work clothes.

“Thanks. I think I’m gonna go shower the dead off me. Feel free to help yourself to…whatever.” He gestures vaguely at the refrigerator, standing and stumbling. He can feel Vaughn watching him until he closes the bathroom door.

The shower is too loud to use in the midst of a bad migraine, but once he’s at the edges of it he can tolerate it. Rhys keeps the lights off and navigates the bathroom by feel.

The hot water does very little to wash away Rhys’ feeling of guilt, but he tries anyway. He considers asking Vaughn to leave (knowing quite well that he won’t – he’s spent the last three nights here, sleeping on the couch), considers faking it and acting like he’s fine. The water pressure changes and a wave of vertigo hits him so hard that he has to sit down on the floor.

This doesn’t feel like friendship. Rhys isn’t really sure _what_ it feels like – they’re both thousands and thousands of miles away from home, on a satellite, while Rhys’ brain malfunctions because it’s full of wires now and Vaughn gives him medicine. It’s different than anything they’ve ever known and it’s scary and there’s a part of him that wants to run screaming back home.

But he remembers the way Vaughn smiles at him every time he comes back around. He remembers the way Vaughn all but broke down the door the first time it had happened when Rhys was in such exquisite pain that he couldn’t contact anyone to tell them what was happening. Something wrenches in his chest a little bit and he sighs. He wonders if he’ll feel up to taking Vaughn out for lunch tomorrow.

His mind wanders. Vaughn is... nice. Vaughn has a nice face, a cute smile. But Vaughn doesn't date, Rhys thinks, not really. And especially not someone like Rhys, someone who he'd have to clean up after constantly. Cleaning up after Rhys' bad decisions is all Vaughn seems to do nowadays, and while he doesn't outwardly resent it, Rhys is waiting for the day when the other shoe will drop. They hadn't taken anyone else when they'd come up to Helios, and each of them has family but they're planets away. It's just them up here.

Vaughn is family, then, maybe. Rhys isn't sure. He knows he cares for Vaughn very much, knows he looks forward to seeing him more than almost anything else in his day. He doesn't trust anyone else to be around him when he's got a migraine, and he sure as hell doesn't trust anyone else to handle his medications. Maybe that's special. He doesn't know.

But they're _friends_, decides Rhys, standing up. He can't risk ruining that, even if Vaughn is sometimes distracting. Very distracting. Worryingly so.

_Shit._

Rhys emerges forty minutes after he'd entered the bathroom, dressed in new pajamas, hair falling over his forehead. He feels slightly more like a human being, still in pain and dizzy but hungry. He finds Vaughn in the kitchen, warming a can of something up on the stove. His best friend smiles at him warmly and for a moment everything is alright.

* * *

For his birthday, Vaughn gets Rhys sound-cancelling headphones and a full-blackout eye mask, and Rhys chokes back tears.

“It’s nothing much, but I noticed you didn’t have anything to really help you when you get the migraines, so I thought –”

“It’s perfect, bro,” interjects Rhys. “Thank you.”


	3. looking forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> their lives have changed very fast, and not necessarily for the better. but they're together.

It is much later now, and many terrible things have happened to them. They’re no longer Hyperion employees – or maybe they are? Who knows. Their lives now are fast and deadly and uncertain around the edges. They are haunted by the ghost of a megalomaniac, they are hunted by fuck knows how many people. When Rhys sleeps his dreams have blue static around the edges. He tries not to sleep.

Pandora is a strange, terrible, exciting place to be. Everything and everyone seems to want to kill them, in a manner that’s much more real than the corporate drama on Helios. It is much different than the story he had imagined for himself three years ago, and he's trying every day to keep up with it.

It’s nighttime, now. They’ve lost track of where they are, but it’s a town, probably, with a hotel and running water and electricity, which feels like a fucking blessing. Sasha and Fiona rented a room on the ground floor, while Rhys and Vaughn are up on the second floor. The rooms are cramped and dirty, with peeling wallpaper and dubiously stained carpeting. Something howls outside, and Rhys checks the locks on the windows.

Vaughn emerges from the bathroom, no glasses, wrapped in a towel. “Man, the water pressure here sucks,” he complains, thumping down on the bed. He’d asked for a shaving razor at the front desk but they were out. Stubble lines his jaw.

Rhys swallows audibly. “At least there’s water?”

“Fair. Give it a while before you shower, though. I think the hot water’s almost out.”

Nodding, Rhys fiddles with the window lock again. Vaughn dresses into his undershirt and boxers and then frowns. There is tension in the air.

“What’s up?”

_Fuck._ “Nothing,” Rhys lies. He draws the threadbare curtains shut, a little bit too forcefully.

“No, dude, come on, there’s something up.” _God damn it._

Rhys heaves out a sigh and spins on his heel. “Why did you come with me?”

Vaughn quirks an eyebrow. “What, do you want me to room with Sasha and Fiona?”

“No, no, like – why did you come to _Pandora_ with me.”

“Because you’re my best friend,” says Vaughn, shrugging like it’s the simplest goddamn truth in the world. “And because you needed help.”

“But I—” Rhys sinks onto the foot of the bed, opposite Vaughn, and grumbles. “You didn’t _have to_. And look where it fucking got us!” He gestures vaguely at their cut-rate hotel room. It's the first they've been able to sleep in for a week.

“What, on an adventure with my best friend, doing shit I never _dreamed_ of doing up there in my boring little cubicle?”

“Almost dying!” His voice nearly breaks.

Vaughn puts a palm up, eyeing Rhys. Thinking. “You…think I’m mad at you, don’t you.”

“Yes! Obviously!” Voice raised, shoulders tense. Too many thoughts spun up for too long spill out of him. He couldn’t stop them even if he tried. “If it wasn’t for my stupid hare-brained bullshit we might be back home, living our normal lives. Not _almost dying_ and _definitely getting fired_ in some backwater desert wasteland.” Rhys draws in a shaky breath, holds it for a moment, and lets it go. “I’m sorry, Vaughn. I wouldn’t have done this if I’d have known how it would turn out.”

“Well I would have.”

There’s silence for a beat as Vaughn walks up to stand close to Rhys’ knees. “You’re my _best friend_, Rhys. And I don’t think either of us was built for corporate drudgery. Sure, this whole thing is… outside of my comfort zone, but whatever. Lots of things are.” He shrugs, casual in a practiced way. "If I quit doing things that are outside of my comfort zone, I wouldn't do much outside of dual-entry bookkeeping."

Rhys leans back on the heels of his hands, unconvinced. Vaughn sighs.

“…And it would have killed me to see you come here without any backup.”

It’s very sudden, then, when Rhys grabs Vaughn around the middle and pulls him in close.

“What would I do without you?” Rhys says, and it's small and high in his throat but he guesses that Vaughn hears it because Vaughn squeezes him in close.

“I don’t know. Get murdered by bandits? Stab yourself in the gut with a stun baton?”

Rhys grumbles, pulling at Vaughn until he’s standing right between Rhys’ legs. Vaughn puts his head down and smiles into Rhys’ hair. Rhys feels guilt creep up into his shoulders, aching at the tendons in his neck.

They’re still like that for a few minutes, quiet, before Rhys pulls back. His face is wet. Vaughn’s face flips from neutral to concerned in an instant.

“Hey. Why are you crying?”

“I don’t deserve you,” says Rhys.

“Rhys,” says Vaughn, stepping in closer. “Don’t start with that. Do I have to remind you that you’re my best friend? That I’m a grown adult and if I didn’t want to follow you down here I wouldn’t have?”

Rhys exhales, shaky, trying to steady himself. He needs to explain himself, to quit blubbering. “I… I feel bad because it always feels like you’re here for me, and not the other way around.”

“Oh, _shut up,_" snaps Vaughn, too tense to be faking. "I can’t count the number of times you’ve pep-talked me out of a panic attack, or when you’ve helped me get out of my own head. If I hadn’t met you – _shit_, dude, I don’t know, I might not have even finished college.”

Rhys scoffs a little, sniffling. “You’re the smartest guy I know.” Vaughn stares at him, incredulous.

“Two things." Vaughn counts off on his index and middle fingers. "One: no I’m not. Two: college was _scary_, and if I hadn’t met a certain gangly, cheerful idiot, I don’t think I could have survived it.” His hands migrate back to Rhys' shoulders, firm and immobile, like they're made of stone. _Not going anywhere._

“Don’t call me an idiot.”

“Then quit being one! I’m telling you that I _care about you_, Rhys, I don’t know how else to say it. I’m sorry.”

Rhys rests his forehead against Vaughn’s sternum. A few moments later he feels wet droplets in his hair. The tension breaks. Something changes.

“I love you so much,” says Vaughn, quietly, after a good while. Rhys holds him tighter.

“I love you, too.” It feels easy to say, despite the fact that he’s never said it to Vaughn before. It feels like he should have said it a long fucking time ago.

They stay there like that for a long time, holding each other and calming down. Rhys feels his guilt ebb slowly into the recesses of his mind. _We’re here_, he thinks. _We’re here, and we’re alive, and Vaughn loves me, and that’s okay. _He forces himself to think it until it feels real, like he can will peace into existence.

_It’s all going to be okay._

Minutes pass. They apologize, forgive each other, hug again. They’re both stressed out, concludes Vaughn, and that means they’re probably going to be assholes. Rhys takes a shower while he’s still half-conscious. Exhaustion has caught up with him, and he can feel it in his bones. He doesn't linger in the shower longer than he needs to.

The lights are low and Vaughn is under the covers by the time he comes out. There is a single bed in this hotel room, which won’t be a problem, because it hasn’t been a problem for the last month or so as they’ve travelled across Pandora. Rhys nudges at Vaughn’s outstretched forearm, asking for room, and climbs in.

“Hey,” asks Rhys, after a bit. The lights are out. “Does this… change anything?”

“Huh?” Vaughn sounds sleepy, like he'd been dozing off. Rhys thinks it sounds nice.

“The, uh, the ‘I love you’ thing. Because it’s true, and I do, but… I dunno. I don’t want things to get weird.”

Vaughn smiles a little bit, looking tired. He looks tired a lot these days. “I don’t think it has to change anything, no.”

Satisfied, Rhys smiles. “Okay, cool. G’night.”

“Good night.”

Rhys falls asleep quickly. He feels comfortable in this strange in-between, in a rickety bed in a town whose name he doesn’t remember, tugging the blankets away from his best friend. Maybe someday that will change, but for now it’s fine. He’s got his best friend, and maybe that’s all he really needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, babes! this was fun to write!!

**Author's Note:**

> borderlands is a game series for idiots and unfortunately i am the biggest idiot.  
this was fun! i am a new lil baby to the borderlands fandom, so if i fucked anything up in terms of in-universe facts, please let me know.  
i would like to thank my babes, [kieren](https://twitter.com/telperinquars) and [rhys](https://twitter.com/AngstyRhys) for getting me into this ridiculous, lovely series, and for beta-ing this fic. i love you both!  
i'd like to continue this storyline, sort of, with something maybe kind of spicy. stay tuned!  
i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/ceruleanspruce)! come say hi! i love you!


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